Host changing....compression issues/question

[Qvae]

I'm moving from the reprehensible, horrible host known as site5, and to a new hosting company....yeah I had to bash them a little because of their service....anyway, all hosts I've been to either had gzip there, or installed it upon my request. This new host I'm looking into says they don't have it, and they are not really interested in it...hopefully I can change their mind since they didn't give me a hard no.

Their response to me was they don't have mod_gzip but "You can use php's own compression capabilities." I have no idea what that is. So my question is this; Are these php compression capabilities as good as gzip or better? Are there draw backs? Is it as easy to implement across an entire site?

Before the responses, yes I know I can probably hunt for another host, but I'd like an answer to this question in particular.

Thanks.

[DrByte]

If your host doesn't have gzip compression on by default or doesn't have it available as a built-in option, you can ask Zen Cart to do it itself by setting GZip Compression to 1 under Admin->Configuration->GZip Compression.

This causes PHP to use the ob_start, ob_flush, etc infrastructure to do output buffering.
http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.outcontrol.php


You *might* also succeed in enabling it by setting an output_buffering directive in your webroot .htaccess file.

php_value output_buffering On

[Qvae]

you can ask Zen Cart to do it itself by setting GZip Compression to 1 under Admin->Configuration->GZip Compression.

1/ Maybe a dumb question, but would that enable it site wide, or just for zen?

2/ If I read the link you pointed to me correctly, all web compression basically leads back to gzip through calling something. So do I still have gzip function through php? If that is the case, why did the host say "gzip isn't something that we install any longer" and "we no longer install mod_gzip,"?

Or am I just confusing something?

Thanks.

[DrByte]

1. Only for Zen Cart.

2. Probably only works within PHP.

It's odd that a host would "no longer" install gzip support. It's not exactly obsolete...

[Qvae]

Thanks for your help. I also found out...correct me if I'm wrong on my statements, gzip seems to be available to servers regardless, it is just a matter of how you call it. Through mod_gzip, or through the php function which I believe is what you were stating with ob_start and ob_flush. Now my understanding is through the php function it is less efficient than through mod_gzip(I don't know what the efficiency factor is based on from where I read that. Speed, compression ratio?). However I believe I have proved to myself about the inefficiency with my own unscientific tests of speed with a few pages off of my current site against sites I have found at this potential host with compression running of comparable/"relative" size (basically 10,000 bytes difference either way), my site always performed an average of 5-15 seconds faster through tests at websiteoptimization.com at all of the potential connection speeds.

So I guess my question is, is the php compression less efficient?

Thanks.